Some rough working notes, me thinking out loud: "The varieties of material existence": http://cognitivemedium.com/vme pic.twitter.com/g66P85yiVZ
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I'm curious about the extent to which multiple fields are conceiving of new states of matter at the moment, especially by the current flux in how physicists think about what a phase of matter ispic.twitter.com/spKOis4MVa
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I realized, somewhat to my chagrin, that I didn't have a very good answer to the question "what phase of matter are living systems"? Thinking this through, they're a hybrid: many components are liquids or solids; many important components are far from equilibrium; &
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they contain amazing systems which are designed to keep them away from equilibrium.pic.twitter.com/5S3qXQqrUS
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On physics as a design science. One of my favourite distinctions is Herb Simon's distinction between sciences of the natural & sciences of the artificial. I wonder if physics might actually transition from one to the other?pic.twitter.com/Cim23RdVAo
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Here's Simon's book on the distinction:https://www.amazon.com/Sciences-Artificial-Herbert-Simon/dp/0262691914/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537418555&sr=8-1&keywords=herb+simon+artificial …
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And some speculation about whether the notion of fundamental particles even makes sense, since there are systems in which it's possible to give two equivalent descriptions in terms of entirely different sets of fundamental particles.pic.twitter.com/r2FsiRkrdS
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A particularly strong version of this might result in a point of view in which the fundamental particles and forces barely matter at all, and what really matters is notions like universality in computation, programmability, and some sufficiently broad notion of phases of matter.
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If you read this far, thanks for indulging my thinking aloud!
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End of conversation
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I forget who said it, but my favorite definition of life is "electric jelly".
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I want a definition of "phase of matter" that doesn't include arbitrary chunks of the universe. Minimal conditions of statistically homogeneity and short-range correlations still cover e.g. starling flocks. But organisms have neither: I feel "complex system" is better (if vaguer)
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You’re getting close to the old philosophical dichotomy of “matter” vs “mind”
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Is a macroscopic mechanical device that simulates some interesting topological behavior (but say O(exp) instead of O(n)) a state of matter? Would a conscious transistor array count? Maybe a state of matter has to meet certain computational bounds (so simulations won’t qualify)
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